New Search: Vendor-based merchants, how will you compete?

It should, if you are a themed mall. It's not just you in the mall - but 50 to 100 (or whatever number) other people like you, that bump the mall's classified up to the top. There is power in the collective, when done right.

I did read it thanks. In the end it comes down to what meta data/tags the search appliance will read. It seems to me that the information there is rather light on explaining whether it would be able to extract such tags from scripted vendors (I expect it will not, although they claim 220 file types that can be crawled through). If you found something different please post it...



Oddly I prefer the exact opposite. I don not like vendors since every time you click you have to wait for the texture to rez. I prefer stores like Nyte N Day which have simple prims with one texture per prim. I can TP there make some tea while they rez, then go shopping.

Needless to say, my own store has simple 1 prim vendors.

I hate vendors. I won't take the time to watch each item rez. I'd rather open up my web browser and do some surfing while a prim store rezzes everything for me.

I also hate seeing one listing for every variation. The likes of slexchange are a pain. Page after page of the same damned thing.

6500 prims available in my home location. All one parcel. Cheap advertising. Except none of it will be seen because everyone else will be able to do the same thing.

I totally agree that it's a lame solution to a search engine. I don't know the answer to the question; I'm just thinking aloud on how to deal with it. Anyone else got any other ideas?

ditto. i walk right past them now. if that's all a store has for shopping from, i move on.

I am sorry, but I see nothing wrong with vendors. It's an efficient way to manage large amounts of items in multiple locations, especially if networked with useful features that help track sales. I don't understand the snobby attitude - so what if it's in a vendor? I don't feel like sitting in a store and waiting 3 minutes for everything to rez all at once. You could miss out on a really good item. It's irrational to me, especially if the store is well-decorated with good pictures of the stuff inside.

Scripts break, single prims selling their contents don't. After dealing with several sellers insisting that their scripted vendors are perfect and it must all be my fault I personally just don't trust them, they're unreliable and have eaten enough of my L$.

It's one 3 minute wait waiting for the whole store to rez vs twenty 3 minute waits waiting for each new texture in the vendor to decide to fully rez in (that's assuming you don't get one of the fancy ones that skip ahead to the next item on their own after 30 seconds).

A vendor can only serve one person at a time as well. If someone's using it already you have to wait till they're done, if you're using it you have to hope they'll be nice enough not to use it while you're browsing or you're pressured to make a choice quickly since you're keeping someone else waiting.

You also can't look at the contents to check the permissions if they're not listed, and they deliver boxes instead of a folder which is just asking for trouble with frequent "failure to rez" issues.

I'm the opposite. I can't stand vendors, and I can never seem to get the texture on the vendors to actually load correctly. The "single item" boxes have a similar problem, but I can click on them to tell the system that I want it to load faster. I can't do that with the vendor - clicking on it sends me a notecard or asks me to buy something. I can't see whatever is for sale, dang it.

Also, I really like being about to click "buy" on a box and see what I'm actually buying - it lists everything that you will buy (unless the box itself is selling a packaged box, then I'm back to vendor land where I don't know what all I'm buying).

I've stopped into stores, seen a vending machine, and fled. Many many times. Unless everything is working perfectly and I can see the vendor texture, or I know I want whatever is being sold and it is very unique, I'll not spend the time with vendors. I hate vending machines.

I agree. I'd much rather see a few results per store, not wade through pages after pages of almost the exact same dress from the same store.

That can be bit "risky" if it's set to left-click buy though.

Right-clicking on it and leaving it highlighted for a second (and then clicking away to get rid of the pie menu) works as well, as well as Ctrl-Alt focusing the camera on it .

The problem is that you have to wait for it to rez each time. The single box things will mostly rez all at once. Then you just look around and see everything. Much easier to find what I want by walking around, examining the pictures, nodding to myself, muttering, than to look at a vendor, look at the one picture, click on the next tiny not visible picture (or pictures depending on the vendor) to see the next item for sale and then sit there scratching myself waiting for it to rez. And I do probably miss out on a good item from a vendor. Because I'd rather go to a place that has everything rez in 3 minutes (or even quicker if I click on it) than wait three minutes each for each item the person is selling.

Yes - that is the other reason I didn't want to admit. I've lost too much money with vendors.

Heh, I need to read whole threads before commenting, I see everything I wanted to say had already been said. Sorry

Only risky if you actually click on buy when the buy box comes up. And if the buy box comes up, well then, that's good. I can look to see what is being sold (two jeans, 2 shirts, 1 box called "flexi" while the item rezes in the background.

On the other hand, most vendors have hover text over them that describes what they are displaying. So I don't have to wait for *any* product pics to rez, for me to be able to determine that the vendor is displaying a set of blue thigh-high boots. I can flip through the vendor choices until the text describes something I might care to see in more detail, and then wait for *that* to rez.

Most "wall full of boxes" stores take so long to rez for me that those are the ones I tend to walk right past, because I can't tell at all what they sell until the wall full of different textures *does* rez.

FYI, you don't need to click or select prims to force-load their texture. Hovering the camera over them long enough for the hover tips to appear is sufficient.

I find this to be an interesting point of view...

First, let me state for the record that I script vending systems.

What got me into scripting vending systems was the unreliability and lagginess of some of the existing choices. I don't like vendors that take way too long to process a transaction, or that do not provide enough information about the products in them, or that lag the sim they are in.

I wouldn't write off all vending systems because some of them are horrible, I have seen some pretty interesting systems out there which seem to work very well and have little impact on lag. I have seen others (including some of the more popular ones) which cause extreme issues and don't work that well.

While buyers should obviously need to worry more about the products they are buying, it would certainly be helpful to merchants if you inform them of your satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with their chosen method of vending.

I would much rather hear about all the reasons my vendor system stinks... so I can fix them and improve the whole process.

One thing I find interesting though, is that some would prefer to see a store with 100 different prims all textured with their product pictures rather than a couple of vendors which load 1-10 (or so) textures at a time. It would seem to me that a shop with a few vendors, would rez much faster than one with 100 different textures.

You've given me some things to think about, and since I am developing a new version of my vending system, I will certainly take your concerns in mind with its design.

Very interesting post I snipped it, though, for one note I wanted to make: I seem to shop at places where the creator sells many things that are very similar except one has an extra skirt (mini, mirco, full-length) or is in a slightly different color (maybe everyone else can just read that a dress is mint green, another dress is British Racing Green and know immediately, yes, that mint green is what I want, just by seeing "mint green" )) or the like. It is much easier to see what I want to buy if I see the item side by side. With the Vending machines I keep having to flick through it rapidly to try to find what I want, and then go from one slow loading picture to another to see the subtle differences and then to decide what I want to spend my money on.

==
Oh, and yes, I probably need to examine the selling device. I have noticed more lag with vending machines, but sometimes I do not notice lag with vending machines. So, guess I'll look next time I find vending machines.

on a similar note .....

my store is IMPOSSIBLE to sell from vendors... if you buy e.g a dress in SL you are pretty much buying a texture but in my store people like to see the item...play with it a little bit see its fucntionality that counts for LARGE prim counts, so should I just put up a wall of crap or take picture in a vendor and say .." you wanna play with it .... then buy it"

I currently have half a sim.... and have started to SIGNIFICANTLY rework the area into a shopping street cutting my light and floor shop in two, i doubt that this is a good thing really but i wanted to do it because I see too many shops that are boxes with 20 prim high 20 prim wide for sale boxes and NO effort put into the actual building. Its a shame... maybe people dont REALLLY take a look around in SL its just pop in and pop back out again. I dunno ... maybe we need zoning and telehubs again so people will actually GO places.

As for the search ...... I think the current search is bollox anyway I personally have seen my name move up and down by 5 places within 2 hours with no change in mine or my business peers details..... im prepared to try anything new.

but

Im currnelty building a london underground station....... does the train move....no not yet but im doing it for fun and that is what SL is about too.......

Feel free to pop over and take a look at my station though as im open to critism

Sounds interesting. I want to see.

Note: Use temp rezzers for added impact. Show a picture of a London Train; a Moscow train or whatever it is you sell, a person clicks on that to rez it, it rezzes, a person looks at the "actual" item (make sure you make it so the item exists for enough time).

And I should note: I will note what I noted in another thread - I want everyone to use life-size dolls to show their dresses, not boxes or vendors.

And yes, I much prefer if the place "looks nice." I really love what went into Isle of Nymphetamine. A very neat build. I love finding places like that to shop in, so whatever it is you sell, the very idea of taking the time to put in streets and the like leads me to want to look at it.
Isle of Nymphetamine:

I appreciate the feedback here... and now that you mention it, I don't think I have seen anywhere near the same number of vending systems in stores that sell clothing over those that sell gadgets & such. I think you've given me a couple of ideas for that...

This is one my my missions in life... to create a virtually lag-free vending system that is reliable and secure. I want my clients to know that their clients won't be lagged out... and I want people to see my brand and know it's safe to shop there.

A vendor can never provide as much as information as a single-prim for sale though.

As Lexxi mentioned, the "Buy" window is *very* handy because it shows everything you're buying and the permissions you're getting.

I've been to a store that sold jewelry in a vendor and it just indicated that the items were NC/T, but nothing about mod. Looking at the contents of the vendor doesn't do me any good because that just tells me the permissions for next owner on the box, not what's inside of it.

Knowing what layers an outfit comes with can also be crucial to deciding whether you want to buy it or not, which a vendor won't/can't tell you.

(And personally I really and truly *hate* the green text flood of vendors. They make my history a mess and useless if I'm talking with someone while I'm shopping)

That's the theory but it just doesn't work that way in practice. When I tp into a store I'll get a half-rez within a minute or so and can just start browsing one wall, after a few more minutes the entire store has rezzed in full detail, before I even finished looking at the first few items closest to me (or if I end up inside, by the time I make it inside the store everything is done and ready).
A vendor might very well make the store itself rez 1 minute faster, but you loose that by being forced to wait 1-3 minutes every time you click "Next" and wait for a rez.
If you're really unlucky the texture you saw in the vendor 5 minutes ago will have been been removed from the cache and need to rez in again, making "back-and-forth" quite tedious (it's already inconvenient on a vendor).

My last experience with a vendor was particularly annoying: the store would rez but the vendor just got stuck on blurry, so I wait. 15-30 seconds pass and the vendor automatically skips ahead to the next item. The old one never rezzed and the new one is still rezzing. I sighed and clicked the back button. 15-30 seconds pass, no full rez, but the vendor skips ahead again on its own. I had to spend at least 2-3 minutes per single item, actually fighting with the vendor to stay on the item I was waiting to rez in.

I gave up after 10 minutes of essentially getting nowhere very slowly and tp'ed away frustrated even though there was an item in the vendor I *really* wanted. If the seller had simply put up a wall of prims I would have found the item in 2 minutes. The seller would have made a sale, I'd be happy I found what I wanted and I'd spend time looking at the other items on sale. Either way I'd save time and have a far more pleasant shopping experience.

I'd add that this is a rather sweeping generalization. I've seen stores that were a horrid unaesthetic mess. Some used vendor systems, some used single prims.

Equally I've seen some beautifully layed out stores. Some of these were vendor based some were single prims and some were a mix.

An example of bad single prim store would be a solid wall of tiny prims (less than 1m x 1m) with no rhyme or reason to the grouping of them. They would be stacked 8 or 10 high making it an interesting exercise in the use of the camera controls to shop. The pictures would be small and low rez making it hard to distinguish the features of the outfit.

An example of a good single prim store would be Nyte N Day. Large high rez pictures (>2mx2m), grouped by theme or clothing type. Signs pointing to the relevant section. Prims stacked no more than 2 or 3 high.

A good vendor store would be one that has vendors with those spiffy preview panels and not too many items per vendor. The vendor should for preference hold items that are grouped in some reasonable way (by style or clothing type). Oh and as little lag/rez time as possible. I'd also like to know what I am buying (how many items in a set, what they comprise e.g. blouse, skirt panties etc).


I have worked hard to make my little store a nice place to shop. It is situated in a low lag location. I have put much thought into the decoration including for example some statues to add to the overall atmosphere. I use single prims but they are large, not stacked too high and hopefully accurately represent the contents.

If someone turns their nose up at it simply because it is not 100% vendor based, that is their choice, but I hope most people would at least let the textures rez and then decide

Oh gosh I know how you feel. I just feel so bad when that happens. What if I missed some really nice item, How would I even know ? The shopping gods can be very cruel sometimes...

The texture-lag with vendors surprises me. I scripted mine, and one of the things I did to prevent texture lag was to take the black-colored edges of buttons and such and apply the vendor's textures there. So anyone using the vendor already has the textures loaded.

This happens to me all the time! I was wondering if it was just me. I've given up shopping from vendors. I'm always sort of sad when I arrive at a new store and find it full of vendors, because I know that I'll have this same experience. Usually I just leave. Bummer, but true.